Scripture: Topics: Bible Questions with Mike
All right, Jared keeps following me around here. This trough is where I'm dipping in the finished, wood finish, my cedar lumber on the outside. So I dip it in there and that way when I put it up, it don't have to get up there and paint it. It's already finished and it won't cup when it gets ... the sun hits it because it's finished all the way around and it takes a lot. It took 24 gallons to do this entire pile here. So it's probably going to take me 50 gallons by the time I get all my material.
I'm Michael Pearl and Jared's behind the camera, and I'm building a house here for myself and Jared's following me around, won't let me work any today, keeps asking Bible questions, but I'd rather do that and work on the house. So, what are the questions people have been asking, Jared?
βIn the Bible, there's a woman named Deborah, she's a prophetess. I thought the Bible said women were not allowed to be prophets and or in positions of leadership.β
In the Book of Acts 21:8-9 the Apostle Paul comes back to Caesarea on his third missionary journey, and he comes to the house of Philip. And Philip has four daughters that it said were prophetess. And so certainly women are prophetess. In other words, my wife has a gift of prophecy. From time to time, God reveals things to her about people or things or events that are going to occur. Now, she never speaks publicly about those things. She never instructs men or teaches publicly those things, but mostly it's for prayer. In other words, she will tell me, "God has revealed to me that..." and she'll give me a scenario and we pray for the person that's involved. A lot of times she'll have knowledge of a missionary's need before we hear about it.
Or she'll have knowledge of a Christian's impending temptation before it happens, or some event that's going to take place in the church or in the ministry, things that God wants us to know so that we can pray and make preparation for it. It's not for show and it's not for public display for the will of God.
Can women receive the gifts of the Spirit?
Now, women can receive every one of the gifts of the spirit that men have. They can receive all the gifts. But now there's another set of gifts in the book Ephesians 4:11-12, it says, βGod gave to the church, apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers for the work of the ministry, for the edifying, the saintsβ and so forth. Now, those are not gifts to the spirit. Those are offices that God gives to the church. So men prophets are given to the church to minister.
Women prophets are not given to the church to publicly minister. That doesn't mean they can't reveal their prophecy to the church, that a woman prophet can go to her husband and say, "I think the church needs to know this," and the man takes it to the church. Or she can go to one of the other men in the church if she's not married or to one to the pastor, and she can say, "God has revealed to me this." And then she can filter it through the pastor to check and see if it is in fact from God and it's the will of God. And if he feels that it is, then it comes under his authority, not under hers.
Can Women be in a place of leadership?
Now, it's an interesting thing about, you mentioned Deborah. Israel was in a state of decline, unbelief, and depravity at the time Deborah became a judge in Israel. And when they went to war, I think the guy's name was Barrack, the commander there, it's been a while since I read that, of the Israeli army. And he was afraid to go to war without her. And she said, "Look, if I go out and I lead this battle, then I'm going to get the glory." In other words, there was the understanding even then that it was not meant for a woman to take the lead, that this was an incongruous situation. It was an embarrassing situation for Israel to have a woman in the lead.
Sometimes women do better in a time when men have become effeminized or when men have become carnal and selfish and depraved. Like in Israel, Golda Meir was one of the best leaders the nation of Israel's ever had, maybe the best that they've ever had. So sometimes God uses women in a great place like that.
Can Women be leaders in the Church?
But in the church, the Bible said that, "A man is not to suffer a woman to teach, nor to use serve authority over the man, but to be in silence also sayeth the Lord." That's what God said. That's not what I say. So a woman can be a prophetess, but she's got to be silent in the church. That's the bottom line. There's no way around that.
Now, if I had my way, I would let the women speak in the church for the simple reason that if you open up a church service and you say, "Okay, all you men can participate," and might not have anybody speak up. But if you open up a church servant and say, "Men or women can speak," you're going to have a three hour meeting because the women all want to talk. But I've seen churches where the women were like that, and they always take the lead. The church always becomes a woman's church. Why? Because the women are ready to speak, they're ready to share their views, they're ready to argue their point, they're ready to take lead. Women, it's like God put in them a desire to fill a vacuum. And that's good because us men in the home, we leave a lot of vacuums. And if there wasn't someone there to fill them up, the home would be in a mess.
Conclusion
And so women, they just jump in and whatever the need is, they seem to have the energy to make it happen. And that's their tendency, that's their nature. And so if the church is opened up to women, everything will get filled, but the men will stop going to church. They'll stop seeking God. They'll stop seeking to be spiritual, and the men will become followers of the women. The families will lose their children. They'll lose the young boys to the world. And the church becomes 13 women and three old men and one teenage boy meeting together. It's just the way it is, always has been. And if you go to some places like in the hills of Kentucky where women have taken a prominent lead coming from the old Irish countries, and you say to a man, "You need to trust Jesus." And he says, "Religion is a woman's business. A man's got no business in religion." Why? Because the women have been the head of the church for the last 300 years since they've been living there in those hills. And you'll find that all over the world where women take a lead.
